Name: Amy & Isabelle
ISBN: 9781471128677

Elizabeth Strout

From the Man Booker Prize longlisted author of My Name is Lucy Barton ? Isabelle Goodrow has been living in self-imposed exile with her daughter Amy for fifteen years. Shamed by her past and her affair with Amy's father, she has submerged herself in the routine of her dead-end job and her unrequited love for her boss. But when Amy, frustrated by her quiet and unemotional mother, embarks on an illicit affair with her maths teacher, the disgrace intensifies the shame Isabelle feels about her own past. Throughout one long, sweltering summer, as the events of the small town ebb and flow around them, Amy and Isabelle exist in silent conflict until a final act leads ultimately to the understanding they both crave.

Amy & Isabelle

Lindy

No, you couldn't blame these things on God. It was people, just ordinary, regular people, who did this to each other. People ruined other people's lives.

People kept going; they had been doing it for thousands of years. You took the kindness offered, letting it seep as far in as it could go, and the remaining dark crevices you carried around with you, knowing that over time they might change into something almost bearable.

All the love in the world couldn't prevent the awful truth: You passed on who you were.

When Amy Goodrow, a shy high school student, falls in love with her math teacher, the love affair threatens the intimate relationship between Amy and her mother, Isabelle, whose feelings are influenced by the shame of her own past. A first novel. 100,000 first printing. Reprint.

Amy and Isabelle

Maybe some lessons are meant to be learnt

Josh Clement

I liked the descriptions of shyness, north east America and a complicated mother/daughter relationship. However, I couldn't connect with any of the characters so I felt stuck at the surface level, like I had started watching a daytime soap halfway through.